Fundog Gundog

19/07/2025

Lovely to meet Rudy today, we started with a settling activity, then introduced the clicker, with a game for his humans too! E then looked at ready to work cues and hand touch building up to a recall.

19/07/2025

Ebony, Toby, Lola and Priya having fun in puppy class today! Hand tough, puppy push ups, tug arousal and Its Your Choice!

19/07/2025

Gundog Adolescents showing great skills today, fab progress on Sleepy, working on delaying reinforcement and fun delivery, and starting Tell Me a Secret!

18/07/2025

Archie, Dotty and Wilma all started their Level 2 class this evening. We checked in with stays, building up more duration, then checked stop whistle - looking forward to seeing what distance we can start to achieve this course!

We then worked on holding the mark, and an exercise to work on correctly picking up the dummy. Well done everyone!

18/07/2025

"When I look at my dog, I only see greatness" - Susan Garrett

Is Bisto 'perfect'? No, he's a living, breathing, sentient being with the ability to make choices so of course sometimes those choices are not the ones I'd like.

BUT

He tries his absolute hardest to understand what I want and offer it to me

He will work his paws off all day long

He throws himself into anything I ask of him

And that, to me, is greatness

So, next time you find yourself dwelling on things you don't like, catch yourself and remind yourself of all the things your dog does to try and make you happy, to fit into your world. See their greatness and enjoy, they are with us for such a short time 🤎

17/07/2025

Congratulations Level 2 Lyka, Oakley, Maple and Otto (sadly missing Blue on his holidays!) finishing Level 2 and being brilliant! You've all worked so hard and the progress is really showing, well done 💪👊👏 Keep on practicing and progressing and I look forward to seeing you all in Level 3!

17/07/2025

Lovely to meet Monty and River this evening who came along for their introductory session!

17/07/2025

If you have a dog with Big Feelings, have a quick read...

This is a pretty cool illustration of what we often call "trigger stacking", in dog training, from Incidental Comics.

The effects of stress are cumulative. Your dog's body responds to stress in preparation with stress-related behaviours, but those biological responses don't dissipate immediately. Repeated exposure builds on stress responses the body is still dealing with.

Stress isn't all bad - replace the word 'stress' with 'challenge', for a better understanding. What we often view as excitement may be building arousal, your dog's body and brain preparing to rise to challenge.

Think of a dog going out for a walk. Before the door is even open, the dog is already showing excited behaviour - this tells us his or her body is getting ready to face the sensory stimulation, potential social challenge, physical exertion and everything else that faces them when they go out.
Think how quickly those tetris blocks are falling...some slotting into place but others building and building to the point of overwhelm.

The more stressors/challenges that are stacked, the more difficult it is for that dog to inhibit their responses...so then we have big, demonstrative stress-related behaviours that seem "out of the blue".

But that's not really a thing...behaviour doesn't (usually) happen out of the blue. There's been a gradual build over time that we might have missed because we inaccurately tend to believe that the absence of lunging, barking, BIG behaviours, means the dog is doing ok.

Recognising the earliest signs of canine stress, that can be super-subtle, and understanding the conditions under which these behaviours happen, will help you help your dog. Getting started on stress-busting as early as possible is the most helpful of all; unfortunately, dogs don't come to me until their stress-related behaviours are so escalated that it's causing their humans major disruption. They've tried everything...but you don't need to do that, indeed STOP doing that. Get help and proper, evidence-based guidance as soon as you spot an inkling of concern.

17/07/2025

Then it was time for some water retrieve practice, helped by .the.springador.dog! Bisto was most disappointed that he had to share retrieves with two ladies not just one!

17/07/2025

Moby swung by this morning for a 1 to 1 and he has fully hit his adolescent stride! We looked at prioritising what the owners want to focus on, at this age it can all feel a bit much, so breaking stuff down into manageable pieces can help bring focus for us as much as our dogs. We looked at what alternatives we can ask for to disrupt unwanted behaviour and introduced some other activities to give Moby outlets for his energy and big feels 😊